A black and white film was used by mistake
but this moment was salvaged. Even if they were satisfied with the
black and white you can see the original still needed professional
retouching.

These are the originals, yellow, dark and damaged.

These are restored only. Meaning the damage of yellowing has been
removed or color corrected. The damage of darkening over time has
been enhanced and damage of tears wrinkles or stains have been removed.
Also standard sizes achieved.

Colorizing photos from a black and white era is a preference, not
everyone cares for it. It depends on what you are trying to achieve with
them. It also depends on how much money you want to spend and what's it
worth to you to see them in color. These are restored and colorized. It's important that they be
colorize at the same time so that the color of the three match as a group.

Submitted by Roberto of San Diego

Restoring an image just as it is, is special and sometimes kicking it
up a notch with color or a different background is better!

Do
you have a portrait photograph of your dog? Look for some like
these to include in your family tree or create a special place in your
scrapbook or wall.

Circa 1960. Get ideas from greeting cards on how you would like your photo
colored. Makes a very sentimental gift.
See custom gifts.

Circa, 1945. Refrigerator magnets are fun and
easy to recreate yourself. Have the photo restored and mount it
yourself to a sheet magnet you can find in any craft store like
Micheal's.

Adding
creative or partial coloring is less expensive than coloring every detail..

The cost of some completely colored images are kept down
because of the simplicity of the image. This photo had very little details
and the dress actually stayed the same because the client said the dress
was silver, how fortunate!

Taken in the famous, Waldolf Astoria
Hotel in New York City, Circa 1950. Colorized and glare removed.

Circa 1950. Removed fade, colored birthday
girl and the mischievous brother that would be hard to notice if it
weren't for the coloring, cropped and
enlarged.

Total
Colorizing

Circa 1925. Even after restoring the crack and turning it to a black and
white, this American flag was barely visible. Coloring it made it much more
interesting.

Repairs
AND total coloring. The more details to color the longer it takes, you
know that old adage. "Time is Money".

Wallpaper

Carpet

Mantel
and logs

Flower
pot and plant

Lamp
and shade

Skin
and hair

details
on Clothes

Lips,
cheeks.

Shoes

Window,
curtains.

This tiny photo (1 1/2 x 1
1/2) benefited by coloring so that you could see it better. If
a tiny photo is in focus it can be enlarged to see it better along
with colorizing. When it is not in focus and enlarge you will
be able to see that it is not in focus. When it was small the
fact that it was out of focus was not obvious.

In the 1880s, sepia was created by adding pigment to a photograph. The
word sepia came from a component of the pigment, a sepia cuttlefish. This
chemical process made the photo much more resistant to deterioration over time.
This is why old photographs are sepia toned and have survived until today. Sepia
tone and black and white images were printing method but today they are used to
give a softness and vintage feel.

This definition is as simple as we can make it, for our clients. In general
our clients are not techy and want a general understanding without a whole lot
of reading. If you would like very technical terms and explanations of
what sepia tone is made from and alike, simply do a search for sepia tone and
enjoy the reading.

This is the
original photo used to create a Tintype effect in the photos below. Adding sepia tone
with image editing software helps to blend away uneven or blotching problems with vintage photographs or having
fun like this one.

The following
photographs are samples of what is thought of as Sepia Tones or Monochromatic.

What many
people call black and white, are not, they are shades of the same color. The only one
that comes close to the description of black and white is actually the
grayscale.

A monochromatic image is one whose range of colors consists of shades
of a single color or hue. Monochrome images in neutral colors are
also known as grayscale or black & white.

Even if you don't need restoration of
your family photographs, you may consider colorizing and enlarging them to
decorate with, making a great conversation piece. Some people make cards
out of them to mail at reunion parties or the holiday season.

Circa 2000. There are many
reasons to change the color of a photo. Grey tones and slight
coloring to the skin to coordinate with an antique silver frame is
one. Then there is the matter of shape. It's not as simple as just
cutting the photo to fit the frame.

This moon photo was restored then colored and enlarged but if you
notice even the stars have been re-arranged to make a more balanced
pleasing photo. The stars were crowded around their heads.

To display a not so attractive photo by bringing
it up to date or doing something cute with it.

1900 Gelatin Silver typical
yellowing and foxing. When a photo is this yellowed some may say
"it appears to have very little damage. However that is not the case.

Can you just
remove the yellow and it's okay"? Most of the time photos like these,
fall into the badly damaged category and here is why.

Here is the same photo with yellow
removed and now you can see what damage needs to be repaired.

Restored, cropped and sepia tone added

Totally colorized and sky added.

Sometimes a photograph can be
brought back by doing one adjustment to the entire photograph and yet in
other photographs some the first routine adjustments don't produce much
results and then all the details must be worked on individually to get a
good result. Making this restoration very time consuming.

After taking a photo with a Polaroid camera
you had to swipe it with a chemical to stabilize it and if you did
not put enough on, like this one, the parts that had insufficient
chemical faded away. As you can see we managed to
salvage it!

When bringing back the color to
these faded photos, your expectation of
color is subjective. What
one person calls cherry red, someone else calls orange.
What color is on your screen and what color comes out on your paper
are different. You will never achieve the exact color you
remember. There are many reasons why
coloring in a photo are subjective. Just to name a few, there is the influence of
the color lighting in a studio or outdoors, even the color of the
clothing worn effects the coloring of the skin or eyes. It is
very difficult to tell the true color of someone's eyes in a photo and
really doesn't matter when the photo is on a wall 5 feet away, you get
the idea.

The objective to coloring
these types of photos are to be able to display again, not necessarily
to match your remembrance or obtain perfect skin or eye color.
The essence of the person is still captured.

Circa
1922. If
it can be scanned....it can be restored. The original was an orange yellow
fading on a ceramic round
button with an oval surface and about 3 inches wide by a 1/2 inch thick. We
corrected the color and make it a 5x7.

This image is the original scan
of a paper weight. You can see the beveled edge with chips in
it. Scanning it enables the owner to share it with family members.

This image has been enhanced and
can be taken a step further by adding more details to the
dresses, upgrading it to a higher level of restoration.

Painted
Photographs

Our desire for color shows in
colored tintypes and cabinet cards of the 1800's and it
was very popular in 1930's and 40's to paint
photographs. too. They may or may not have been pleased
with the results at the time but once done to the original they had
to live with it, if they didn't have the negative. Now with
digital restoration you don't
have to live with it, or without the negative.